People · Jesuit missionary, director, Zikawei Observatory
R. P. L. Froc
劳积勋Láojīxūn · 1859–1932
French Jesuit who directed the Zikawei (Xujiahui) Observatory for thirty years from 1896; a street in the French Concession was named after him.
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R. P. L. Froc (劳积勋, Láojīxūn) was a French Jesuit who ran the Zikawei Observatory (徐家汇天文台) in Xujiahui for thirty years.
He came to China in 1883 and began as an assistant to the director, Marc Dechevrens (能恩斯, Néng’ēnsī). After a period in France studying doctrine and mathematics and working at an observatory there, he returned in 1895 and took charge of the Shanghai observatory in December 1896. He held the post until he resigned for health reasons in February 1926, returning to France in 1929.
In those decades he attended world meteorological meetings in Europe (twice) and in Japan (once). His writing on the hydrography of Chinese seas was published by the hydrographic service of the French navy and used as a guide for its ships in the Far East. A road in the French Concession was named for him. The Jesuit centre where he worked lay around St Ignatius Cathedral in Xujiahui.
Timeline
Their Shanghai on the map
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- 01St Ignatius Cathedral, Xujiahui徐家汇天主堂worked heremapThe Jesuit quarter at Xujiahui where the observatory stood.
Places
Church· 1906–1910
St Ignatius Cathedral, Xujiahui
徐家汇天主堂Xújiāhuì Tiānzhǔtáng
The Jesuit-built Gothic Revival cathedral of Shanghai, finished in 1910 for 2,500 worshippers; stripped in 1966, restored in 1979-82 and again in 2015-17.